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NASA's 'Journey To Mars' Initiative Might Be Delayed Due To Government Audit (natureworldnews.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Christian Science Monitor: NASA has taken bold steps toward crewed Mars exploration in recent years. But according to a new audit, the agency may be moving too hastily. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) expressed concerns this past week about the feasibility of NASA's Orion crew capsule and Space Launch System (SLS). In two government-requested audits, the GAO questioned NASA's ability to meet program deadlines, citing insufficient funding and internal management issues. According to the GAO, however, the agency's schedule just isn't realistic. By pushing for earlier launch dates, NASA is increasing the inherent risk of a deep space mission. NASA's budgeting practices are also scrutinized in GAO's audit. In September, the agency asked for $11.3 billion to prepare Orion for launch. "Ideally, if these programs go forward, NASA would be taking actions to reduce the risks we see now, which are being caused by management issues," says Cristina Chaplain, who led the GOA audit, in an interview with the Monitor. "They're going to face the technical issues no matter what. But they're exacerbating them with management concerns, like not having accurate cost estimates." The report adds: "NASA's 'Journey to Mars' initiative has been a source of both excitement and controversy. The Asteroid Redirect Mission, in which the agency will send four astronauts to redirect an asteroid into the moon's orbit, is slated to launch sometime in the next decade. The mission is designed to test new propulsion technology for future crewed Mars missions. In the 2030s, NASA hopes to send an Orion crew to the red planet. NASA plans to complete the first SLS launch in 2018. In the test mission, called Exploration Mission 1, the rocket will carry an empty Orion into orbit around the moon. In subsequent missions, SLS/Orion will launch with a full crew. NASA has scheduled Exploration Mission 2 for April 2023, but administrators hope to launch as early as 2021."
I expect an expensive audit.
Everything is unisex in space.
especially when you wear diapers.
Sig?
If this sort of nonsense had gone on during the Apollo program we would have never put anyone in orbit in an Gemini or Apollo capsule, much less made it to the moon.
Why is Snark Required?
The progress was delayed because of the lack of funding...... The audit only writes it down into paper.. The congress is directly responsable for the lack of funding and the need of such huge funding. GAO makes a great job and titles/articles like this are directed to slam their name into the trash...
christian science monitor is always the first place i go to for science news.
Routine government audits are the worst.
Why are they putting it into Lunar orbit??? What is the value vs a satellite vs landing it on moon vs Mar's moon??
Audit NASA, which has hardly any budget. Do not audit the Pentagon, where trillions disappear regularly.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There is something NASA does very, very well. Deep space exploration. It is the premier organization on the planet for this, with by far the most impressive record. It is the only organization to send probes to the outer solar system. Something it started doing in the early 1970's) with Pioneer 10, the first Jupiter flyby. It operates the only Mars rovers. It has a better record at Mars landers than anyone else, by far. There have been a few brilliant successes by other organizations, but in terms of scale, it's very much "NASA", and then distantly, "everyone else" when it comes to solar system exploration.
There is something NASA does NOT do well. Space trucking. It could contract with SpaceX for heavy launch at under 5% of what it's going to spend doing so itself. It could contract with ULA, who are highly reliable and currently reducing their own costs, although still pricer than SpaceX. Rather than the US govt dictating that 5-segment SRBs must be used because those are providing jobs in this congressional district, they could simply approach SpaceX, say, "this is the capability we want", and save billions of dollars.
Let NASA do what it does better than anyone else in the world: deep space science. Get it out of the space-truck business, where it will never provide value for money. As it stands, SpaceX's own private effort to land humans on Mars is likely to beat NASA's on both budget and time, raising a lot of questions about just what happened.
What's the probability of them screwing up the Webb telescope?
ya know we really are doomed...the rich will go off and guess what land somewhere and ina few generatons themselves be gone with no serfs to run crap....
the time it happens is when you have robots able to do ALL WORK and REPAIRS.....but even they break down eventually....
The whole DoD budget for multiple years wouldn't permit "trillions" to disappear. The DoD gets audited constantly, you just aren't paying attention.
Lastly, when briefing Congress, the DoD uniformly briefs out issues of national survival, while NASA, however much you like it, is a "nice to have" cost center with no criticality.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Over a few beers at the local pub, a few top Government Accountability Office (GAO) geniuses figured that placing Orion atop a huge sky rocket was expensive and simply stupid. In their view, there is less cost and technical issues to achieve launch by using a huge rubber band across a couple of 200 foot tall steal beams (huge nails) embedded in the ground. The launch would sequence would be simple, place the Orion against the rubber, have a few big construction trucks pull the band back then cut the rope.
Wow this site is bullshit now.
Well maybe NASA wouldn't have internal management and budget issues if congress didn't keep using it to play political football with.
Is it any wonder that NASA hasn't done anything spectacular in the past several decades, with all the bullshit games that various senators play, whether it's trying to keep federal funds funneling into their state, or some anti-science moron forces NASA to be managed by conspiracy theorists?
Mars isn't going anywhere. There is no need to rush, just to say we got there.
What they should be spending money on is building a for real ship.
What is a "Ship"?
1. Long term and adequate power source...nuclear reactor of some kind.
2. Artificial gravity (no, not Star Trek, Centripetal Wheel living quarters).
3. Magnetic shielding
4. A non-chemical Power source.
5. Built to last...no one and done crap.
Accomplishing this alone will stimulate more technological development that a mission to mars would. And you would end up with something reusable, versatile and useful.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
NASA can't have $11bn to send someone to Mars, but defense can have $380bn to spend 15 years on a fighter jet no one wanted?
Set up a moonbase, use solar power to crack oxygen out of the regolith, and mine the ice in the polar craters. Now you have fuel AND metals. Use that to build a real, permanent orbital infrastructure.
Eventually, capture a small asteroid, mine enough of it out for installing life support, quarters, etc, and put it into a Mars Cycler orbit. Send it unmanned for a few cycles ( or mine/build several, and launch on trajectory every few months) to build up some infrastructure, or even just supplies in Mars Orbit. Maybe even put it on Phobos or Deimos.
Then, once you have habitat and supplies there (and perhaps a lander and ascent vehicle or three...), THEN send a manned mission.
Slow and steady will get you there AND back home. . .
Despite popular belief the radiation is still there.
First, NASA has been spending about $18 billion per year every year since we lost the orbiter Columbia in 2003, that's THIRTEEN YEARS. The Orion capsule design was selected based on the Apollo OML (Outer mold Line, AKA "shape") because that shape had extremely well-known structural, aerodynamic and hydrodynamic characteristics so using it instead of something newer and better would save time and money. The Orion capsule will not be capable of hauling people into space until 2022 (that will be NINETEEN YEARS after Columbia) and it will only carry 4 crew, while Apollo in one configuration that was setup (for a rescue mission to Skylab) but not flown (because the on-orbit crew solved the problem with their spacecraft) could carry 5.
Second, national defense is the FIRST DUTY of any national government. The Constitution requires the feds to provide for the common defense, but has no requirement that the feds explore/colonise space.
Third, We have wasted BILLIONS on stupid projects like the James Webb Space Telescope which is many years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget and which will only be usefule to look at things so far from Earth that man will not be able to go to those places for 10000 years. The moon, on the other hand, is only a 3 day trip, and Mars is a several months trip.
Fourth, President Obama keeps claiming he has created a great economy, but on his watch the food stamps program has DOUBLED from about $40 BILLION PER YEAR to about $80 billion PER YEAR. Had Obama actually gotten the economy moving, and the labor partiticaption rate not become the worst since the 1970s, that $40 BILLION PER YEAR increase would not be needed and would be available for productive stuff.
There is no plan, no budget, no timeline, no nothing. GAO has pointed this out, CBO has pointed this out, as have other government entities. The Obama plan to go to Mars consists of two elements:
(1) Block any efforts congress makes to back a journey to Mars (like slow-walking all SLS rocket related activities) while disabling the infrastructure to sabotage future efforts (like letting SpaceX take over LC39 pad A and mangle it so no non-SpaceX rockets can use it). SpaceX built a fricking building in the middle of the crawler way to 39A and are filling-in part of the flame trench! When the Obama admin said it was creating a modern "multi-user" space port, they claimed each user youd stack in the VAB on its own custom MLP and then get crawlered-out to one of the two post-shuttle "clean pads", but like everything else they do it was a misdirection. Any manned "Journey to mars" will require multiple heavy lifter launches in very short time (because cryo fuels boil-off rapidly) and with only pad 39B available for anybody but SpaceX Mars aint gonna happen (pads need refurbishing between launches which always damage them) .
(2) Plaster the NASA website with the slogan "Journey to Mars" so that stupid gullible people who visit the NASA web site will think there is a plan to go to Mars.
The previous administration at least had a plan - they had budgets and schedules. Unfortunately BushJr lacked the follow-through and did not sufficiently fund it so it kept slipping its schedule. When Obama got into office, he "improved" things by eliminating any plans and timelines and budgets for Mars, so there is no metric against which his non-progress on his non-commitment cam be measured.
Basic rule of government: When there is an actual plan to do something, there are budgets and schedules. Competent governments then proceed to actually implement the plans within the alloted times and budgets.
Failure to plan = planning to fail.
Rather than Nasa since Eldon Musk wants to land a man or mars let spacex do it. Perhaps it is time to shift to a government prize for various deep space accomplishments, rather that directing the work. DARPA did this with the first phases of self driving cars, and of course if you go back far enough the English government did it with the issue of Longitude. Perhaps 10 billion to the first group that lands a group on mars and returns them safely to the earth. (It would be interesting to see if the Launch Alliance would change their way of working to compete. It might be a little less safety oriented but